1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an image forming device, an image data control method, and a program therefor, and more specifically, to an image forming device, an image data control method, and a program therefor, that can use an external device as a save destination.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is a need to store image data and the like, which are read by a scanner provided in an image forming device, and to do an output operation such as printing whenever a user chooses. For this, there has been introduced an image forming device which has functions of saving inputted image data inside a memory device of the image forming device and of outputting the image data chosen by the user from a list of the image data thus stored.
Further, development of network technology enables to store image data in not only an image forming device, into which the image data are inputted, but also another image forming device or an external server (hereinafter, referred to as “external device”), which are connected to the image forming device through a network.
However, there is a problem in a conventional technique disclosed for example in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-153680 in that an apparatus which can use image data stored in an external device is limited only to the image forming device, which originally stores the image data, and the image data cannot be shared inside a network.
There also has been a problem in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-153680 in that control depends on differences in capabilities and functions of the external devices, based on differences in a way of handling the image data, communication method and so on. Under a circumstance where external devices having various capabilities and functions are mixed, there is a problem that a user must voluntarily pay attention to the differences in the external devices in operating the external devices, or that a save destination of the image data is limited to only an external device having a specific capability or function.